Measure of a Genie
by Scarabbug
Summary: My first Dark Cloud fic, hopefully NOT my last. This is basically some heroine worship from Xiao. One shot.


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Hi there (waves). This is my first Dark Cloud story and its kind of short so sorry if it lacks any detail but personally I think I've done this really well. I got it after playing the game and thinking "wow Ruby is such a cool character." This is Xiao watching Ruby as they battle a hoard of enemies in the forest. Hope you like.

**Disclaimer**: Scarab does not own Xiao or Toan or Ruby or any of those annoying little Pockle guys that feature in this fanfic. She never has owned them, she never _will_ own them. (Unless those guys at Powerline are willing to sell the rights for their game for £9.95 and some fluff.)

Measure of a Genie.

By Scarab Dynasty.

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She's beautiful.

That's the only way Xiao can describe her. She's too young and green to know any longer words for it, but that one seems to suffice. Everything about the older, experienced woman, from the heavy purple of her eyelashes to the fierceness of her stare to the mauve-coloured hair screwed up tight above her head. Everything about her has been checked and neatened a thousand times to make sure it looks as perfect as possible.

In reality, Ruby should be exhausted –worn to her bones. Fifty rounds with pockle hoards and forest witches would do that to anyone. But looking at her now, Xiao can see no signs of that. Only a bravado and rage that near frightens her. Ruby remains as upright and firm as the lacquer in her hair. Her clothing is tight, garish and low cut, almost to the level of being inappropriate. It's rather tacky in a way, but Xiao's too young to know that. To her, it is nothing short of magical. With every breath, every flick of a wrist, every glimmer of glassy eyes, Ruby is showing off to the world everything she thinks she is and everything they ought to know about her if they want to stay alive. Many creatures don't pay attention. Many creatures never make that mistake twice.

The mayor had warned Xiao of that, as she sat in his chamber devouring everything in his fruit bowls while Toan was talking with his new Genie "Servant" on the balcony. He warned her not to let _that genie_ take control, or else she's turn everything around, dominate you, change all the rules –even the ones you didn't know you had. For he had made the same mistake "_and look where that has led me, hybrid brat._"

Xiao hadn't listened. The Mayor, after all, was nothing but a money snatching sleazebag who left Ruby locked in a lamp for years before fobbing her off on a boy who did him a favour. Come on, didn't Ruby have every right to be pissed?

In fact, the only person who Xiao has never seen gawking at Ruby like something on display in the window of the jeweller's store is Toan. Maybe because he knows so many things about Ruby that he thinks Xiao oughtn't know, and that Xiao will never ask about. But sometimes, when he's sleepy and not thinking about what he says, even _he_ admits to her that Ruby is quite possibly the most beautiful thing that has ever existed.

But Xiao has never heard him call her dangerous, and that's the strangest thing. As the colours of light dance around Ruby's fingers and the magical glare grows in her eyes, shocking, merciless, reflecting the confused expression of her stunned prey in their pits, Xiao can practically hear a snare closing around its throat.

In Ruby's hands, the pockle is as good as dead already. Around her wrist, there shines a single glimmer of tarnished gold. Raising its blaze from the air and the floor and the stirring leaves and roots of the forest all around them.

The explosion rises faster than she can see it.

The way the monster's moth-eaten face is filled with pain as it is sucked up in Ruby's whirlwind of icy heat makes Xiao feel slightly sick. The way the genie does it with such a grace and poise that it could almost be considered beautiful makes her tremble with foreboding all the more. As Ruby lowers her still glowing hand and watches it's last few seconds of life, Xiao sees that her face is shining like her jewels. Filled with the sheer pleasure that comes from showing off her power. Glory doesn't come from the kill itself. Or at least, not much of it. The kill is but an impulse. A means to an end.

She bares her teeth, wolflike in the remaining enemies direction in a display of sheer audacity. After a few moments Xiao realises this is a smile. It is this smile alone that frightens their remaining rivals into submission and Xiao cannot resist a quick point and tease as they scurry away into the undergrowth.

Then Ruby's head tilts and she looks at her little feline comrade with a wicked grin.

_Right_ at her.

Xiao freezes in the Genie's gaze. Her own triumphant smile vanishes. She compares Ruby's oval face and elegant frame to her own skinny build, grubby black shorts and white dress. She starts to feel extremely small.

Seeing the cat girl go all quiet and gawky, Ruby must think she's hurt herself and had gone into shock or something. She walks towards her, kneels down and starts to check for bruises. Browsing her over with a thin, violet gaze, just as she examines the stones in the jewel seller's displays. Xiao allows her to do so in silence. The genie's fingertips are coarse against her arms. Not like Toan's. When Toan checks Xiao for wounds after a battle, he makes an effort to be gentle with her, even though his own hands are also rough with toil. He knows whereabouts she's ticklish and how he has to be careful with her thin, wiry bones and so on. Ruby doesn't have that kind of mildness in her. Never has and probably never will.

When she is certain that the small girl is not really harmed, she runs her sharp fingertips over her fuzzy pointed ears, a friendly, pointless touch making her giggle silently, and begins to stride away. Xiao follows, letting herself be led back to the village through the shadow of the trees.

Xiao can't believe anyone would ever want to lock up something like Ruby.

Then again, maybe just looks at things with a biased viewpoint. Maybe Ruby is not so wonderful as she flaunts herself as being. How is Xiao to know? Xiao doesn't know anything much about anything much.

Ruby is bright and impudent and filled with all the nerve that Xiao knows she lacks. Ruby despises the Evil One who causes all the destruction in their world with a hatred Xiao is unable to feel for anything, no matter how hard she tries. That hate is reflected in every fibre of magic in her attack as she blows something up.

Xiao has never seen the Dark Genie. She has felt him though. Felt his deep, deadly presence crawling over the rocks and rubble in the wreckage of the villages he has destroyed, and tasted the bitter water where his magic has poisoned it. That's the kind of evil you taste in your mouth.

Ruby is a Genie too. The first thing she asked Toan when he told her all about the Dark One's power was "more powerful than me?" So Xiao knows being strong means an awful lot to Ruby. Everything the Genie woman has ever had to be is firm and concrete. Diamond-tough. Like the earrings and pendants and bracelets that she sometimes shows Xiao on an evening: explaining what does what and which stones can't be put together if you don't want to blow something up and which ones to call on when you do.

As hard as she comes across, Ruby is not big enough to stop the Dark Genie, yet she always says she will.

And watching her now, walking strong, graceful steps, hair kicked up, and ready to tear you to bits if you're a pockle and you happen to cross her path, Xiao can make herself believe it.

And one thing this _hybrid brat_ does know is that the mayor is right to be scared.

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Hope you liked that. R & R please.


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